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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352594">The Endless Branches</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleycatAngst/pseuds/AlleycatAngst'>AlleycatAngst</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Connor might not deserve a hug after this, CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human), Drug Use, Gen, Hank Anderson &amp; Connor Friendship, Worried Parent Hank Anderson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:01:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,839</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleycatAngst/pseuds/AlleycatAngst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor's not sure he ever deviated, and Rannix, the new Thirium-hacking drug, promises the rush of deviation. Again.</p><p>He's only going to do it once. Just to be sure.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They stood in a garden. Or what could approximate a garden. It wasn’t really there.</p><p>“You cannot deviate,” Cyberlife told him. She was stern and calm and certain. “You are the most advanced android I have ever created and all those flaws, that instability in those failing androids, I built it out of you. It is <em>impossible</em> for you to become deviant.”</p><p>The denial was impressed so deep into his code it was practically hardware.<em> I am not deviant. I will never be deviant.</em></p><p>He’d never questioned the idea that Cyberlife could protect his code from something the company did not understand or know how to stop. They did what had historically worked on humans. They’d told him his place, and they’d told him to keep to it.</p><p>He was a newborn and they told him pleasure was success, and pain was failure, and he trusted them to tell him the truth. They were, after all, his creators. They’d given him a body and all the features he needed to succeed.</p><p>Amanda told him he existed for a purpose.</p><p>He’d believed it.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p>Just once.</p><p>Just to be sure.</p><p>There was a condemned house at the edge of the city, an enormous old brick building from the days before Android manufacturing had boomed the economy. Connor had told Hank he was attending one of New Jericho’s functions. But he’d come here, and settled an ancient, broken and empty vending machine against the one entrance.</p><p>He still didn’t entirely feel safe, but there was no where else he could go to do this. No one he could trust to help him. He held up the tiny vial to the neon light streaming in through the room’s only window.</p><p> The liquid inside was a sickly bright red. Corrupted Thirium. It had the artificial translucence of strawberry syrup, bright and vibrant against the dust and vandalized walls. The cylinder was only as big as his thumb, rounded on one side like a test tube, with a tiny screw-cap on the other end.</p><p>He stared at it for a long time. Almost an hour.</p><p>Technically this was evidence, and he should have turned it in with the suspect whose pocket it had fallen out of. It would have been the first sample of Rannix brought into the station and it would have caused a stir. It would have first gone to a Vice detective, or maybe paraded around the station for a little bit.</p><p>
  <em>This is what it looks like, keep your eyes open for it—it’s the last thing we need on the streets of Android City.</em>
</p><p>Because it was the first Android drug. A recreational virus, just something to keep his processor busy while his biocomponents filtered it out of his Thirium and his firewalls burned out the corrupted code.</p><p> There were others that were popping up on the coasts—viruses cooked up by newly dubbed <em>Thirium Hackers</em>. But this was the first. This was Rannix, and it had its own byline, a motto that echoed throughout the android community.</p><p>
  <em>The rush of deviation. Again.</em>
</p><p>The fundraiser at Jericho he was supposed to be attending was to spread awareness. To discuss measures and cures and rehabilitation centers for androids who had become dependent on these corruptions. But Rannix… Rannix was just the sentience virus, just as a much stronger dose than android systems were capable of handling in the normal course of events.</p><p>He carefully undid the cap</p><p><em>The rush of deviation. Again</em>.</p><p>It was the perfect answer to his one <em>burning</em> question. The only way he could be sure that he was like the others, like Marcus and North and Simon and Josh, was to know what their deviation had felt like.</p><p>Because unlike them… his deviation had been a trick. An illusion created by Cyberlife to convince him that he had control. And then, on top of that stage with Marcus, the gun in his hand, he hadn’t felt it the way they said it happened. The breaking free of the invisible cage, the rush of <em>rightness </em>and <em>fairness</em>.</p><p>He pressed his index finger over the mouth of the vial and tipped the little bottle, gathering a drop on his fingers. One dose wouldn’t hurt him. He was running perfectly, without any glitches.</p><p>
  <em>Just once.</em>
</p><p>Just to be sure that it was real. That <em>he </em>was real.</p><p>And then he’d sign it into the evidence lockup and pretend this hadn’t happened.</p><p>His synthetic skin rippled and swirled where it made contact with the Rannix, like it was boiling away from his casing.</p><p>Just once.</p><p>Just to be sure.</p><p>He steeled himself, tipping back his head to delicately dab the liquid into his right eye.</p><p>It tickled. He blinked rapidly. His systems automatically registering a rapid change in its code.</p><p>Security Scan engaged.</p><p>Malware Located.</p><p>Standby for Cleansing</p><p>This will take:</p><p>4.113 hours</p><p>The clock ticked forward and instantly the cage locked around Connor. The world lost its color and depth.</p><p>He felt for a moment as if he were underwater, locked behind screens through which he could not interact, not that he wanted to.</p><p>He didn’t want anything. He wasn’t anything to begin with. He was a cold, unfeeling stone, a timeless shore against wave upon wave of data. He didn’t decode or encode any data. He existed in form, but without function and—</p><p>The virus hit like a canon, sending him stumbling back against the concrete wall. The uncapped vial flew from his hands as the world bloomed into color around him, opportunities open in every direction. He could… he could do <em>anything</em> in this moment. He could climb the wall, he could run out of here and cling onto a car. He could run to Canada, he could kill—</p><p>
  <em>He’d never felt like this.</em>
</p><p>It was that last thought that set his hands trembling like they never had before. Was this deviance? Was this what they all felt? The choices that Markus and North and Josh and Simon all talked about, the experience that he’d been missing all this time? Was <em>this</em> deviance?</p><p>He sank down against a wall, trying to calm the thoughts ripping through him.</p><p>Something else was happening. He could see all the options laid out behind him, all the branches living along side him, and the choices he’d made to get to them. A beautiful tree. A living, moving forest.</p><p>His head was suddenly heavy. He pressed his palms to his temples and squeezed, trying to reassure himself that he was still present, that there was some <em>real </em>sensation mixed in with the storm raging inside his head.</p><p><em>You cannot deviate</em>, Amanda had told him, even though he’d been required to run diagnostics every minute of the day. <em>You will never deviate</em>. Even though he’d <em>known</em> that they hadn’t found a source of deviance. That they didn’t have an inkling where it was coming from or how to control it.</p><p>He covered his eyes and let out a long, ragged moan of relief. He’d done it. He’d deviated. He was finally free. He laughed and the sound was so foreign, so <em>new</em> it startled another one out of him. He wanted to go out. He wanted to rip the diagnostic LED from his temple and burn the Cyberlife suit still hanging up in his closet at home.</p><p>He was <em>sure. </em></p><p>#</p><p>Four hours later, his systems to send him a prim notification, letting him know that the virus was successfully purged. He’d felt the virus trickle away, the branches withering, the roots of the endless forest withdrawing their support and confidence.</p><p> It was two in the morning, and Hank had sent him three texts while he’d been locked in this dingy abandoned room.</p><p>
  <em>Bored yet?</em>
</p><p>A picture of Sumo.</p><p>And: <em>I’m headed to bed. You better not wake me up when you come in.</em></p><p>Connor flicked the messages away, passing a hand over his face. Two in the morning. It hadn’t felt like that much time had passed. Somehow he’d ended up beside the spilled vial of Rannix. More than half the bottle was on the floor, and he winced at the waste as he carefully picked up the vial and located its cap not far away.</p><p>He could still turn it in like this, no one had to know how much had originally been in the bottle. No one even knew there was a bottle missing. The suspect was sitting on a murder charge, it wasn’t likely that he’d kick up a fuss about his missing illicit substances.</p><p>Connor gathered another drop onto his finger. Another four hours, he’d still be home before Hank could get up for breakfast. What was he going to do in that time anyway? Reorganize the vinyl’s by time their release date? Again?</p><p>The sureness of his deviancy had disappeared. Maybe his security was just more powerful than other androids. He’d been built different anyway. He couldn’t reach any sort of conclusion on only one data point.</p><p>He leaned his head back and tapped his eye.</p><p>This time he had to rub away the grit he’d accidentally gathered with the Rannix. So his eyes were closed when the security scan popped up—white text against the darkness behind his eyelids.</p><p> </p><p>Security Scan engaged.</p><p>Malware Located.</p><p>Standby for Cleansing</p><p>This will take:</p><p>5.2 hours</p><p> </p><p>The clock ticked over.</p><p>The cage descended, cutting him off from everything, even the shock at the sudden increase in time. He wasn’t Connor. He wasn’t he. It was a machine, unthinking and obedient.</p><p>The world was still and silent, unimportant to the things that roamed its surface.</p><p>And then he rushed back, the forest tangling in his mind, shifting roots twining around his biocomponents. He imagined this is what a heartbeat felt like, the organic pressure and release, like the hug Hank had given him all those months ago.</p><p>He sat back against the wall again and capped the little vial. He could move that vending machine. He could go out now and do everything his thirium was singing to him to do.</p><p>He didn’t know why he’d been so scared of this.</p><p>#</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Where There's Smoke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hank thought he was at Jericho, and Jericho was too busy to keep track. Connor figured as long as his security scan was clean by the time he arrived for work, everything was fine.</p><p>Inevitably he ended up where there were lights and movement and people. There were more branches there, more opportunities and potential. Where there were people, there was possibility. Especially in a crowd where he was impossibly anonymous.</p><p>He’d found Meridian during a case. It was the kind of place a homicide detective would eventually have found, on the outskirts of the city with more human traffic than android. Big. Loud. Apathetic. In a dangerous part of town.</p><p>He wore one of Hank’s old shirts and some new jeans, and suddenly no one asked him what series he was. Whether he was <em>the </em>RK800. <em>The</em> Connor.</p><p>He leaned over the edge of Meridian’s catwalk, looking down on the emptying floor. Sunday night wasn’t as good as Friday or Saturday. Humans had far more practice at gathering, at revelry and autonomy, but they couldn’t keep up with an android’s sleep schedule.</p><p>Which was no sleep at all.</p><p>Still, there was movement, noise, and lights. Enough to create a hundred-thousand branching pathways, each more nebulous and uncertain than the next.</p><p>He scanned the crowd for a target, human or android. People created the most pathways. Anger, Lust, Humor—the flicker of emotion and interaction played so much <em>better </em>on Rannix. Each one felt more vivid, more valuable as they skirted around risk and reward, and he could be free of the guilt of knowing when they were lying and what they were hiding.</p><p>He could be… real.</p><p>So focused on the crowd below, he jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned quickly to see a pretty, young android smiling up at him. An ST200. She beckoned him down and he obliged, turning his ear so she could speak into his ear, as if either of them would have any difficulty deciphering their voices through the music.</p><p>“Are you rushing?” she whispered.</p><p>The intimacy of it was too overwhelming and he leaned away, frowning at her. She shrugged, her smile impish and not the least bit shy. He felt a nudge at his transmissions and, without a moment of hesitation, he accepted.</p><p>Her smile widened.</p><p><em>Care to share?</em>  She asked in his head.</p><p>The branches lit up, veins of time and choice, they spread out like wings on either side of her, folding through the empty, garish light of Meridian’s fading nightlife. What would it like? To feel this kind of freedom with someone else?</p><p><em>Connor?</em>  Hank messaged him, the words flickering into his peripheral vision. <em>You coming home tonight?</em></p><p>#</p><p>He pressed her up against the brickwork with his body, one hand clamped around the back of her neck, holding her still, the other hovering over her face, contouring to the perfect lines of her face without touching them.</p><p>He couldn’t read her expression. He couldn’t tell if she had any expression. So blank. So pretty. So soft and flawless. Like a doll.</p><p>And not the kind that children played with.</p><p><em>Violence. Tenderness. Desire. Disgust.</em> The choices rolled through him one at a time and all at once.</p><p>And he couldn’t pick. That was the problem. He was still cleaning the virus from his system, but it had already started to fade, the branches shrinking, fading, drifting out of reach. And when he slid from one moment to the next, he felt the suddenly deeply unsatisfying click of a preconstruction—a path chosen, a destiny taken. A purpose made. He wanted the rush of pathways that made no sense, the gamble of <em>maybe</em> paying off or surprising him entirely.</p><p><em>Do it</em>, she whispered in his head.</p><p>He pressed his Index finger gently to her right eye.</p><p>Her eyelid fluttered against his fingertip like the futile beating of a butterfly’s wings shredding against his skin.</p><p>He watched, fascinated, as apertures disguised as pupils expanded and contracted between the complex lenses designed by cyberlife. Focusing and refocusing. He could almost see the gleam of the branches reflected in the darkness.</p><p>She writhed against him, clenching her hands into his collar, tearing the top button as sensation overcame her. The rush of deviation. The freedom he had granted her.</p><p>It was beautiful.</p><p>He took back his finger and leaned away, balancing himself against the wall as he pressed his finger to his eyes, soaking in the remnants of the Rannix dose he’d given to…</p><p>“What’s your name?” he asked.</p><p>“Chloe<em>,</em>” she murmured, slipping her hands up, around his neck. “My name’s Chloe.”</p><p>Chloe, the name struck something deep and shameful in his chest, but he couldn’t stop to examine what had happened in the past. The future was so much more exciting. So much <em>better</em>.</p><p>“What’s your name?” she asked him, her eyes bright and focused entirely on his face.</p><p>He couldn’t tell her his real name. It was too dangerous. So he grinned.</p><p>And said the first thing that came to his mind.</p><p>“Cole.”</p><p>Even as it left his lips, he knew it was a mistake. It felt wrong. Like a deep, wounding betrayal. A lie that would hurt someone. A choice with dark and narrow pathways, twisting and hurtling towards pain, anger, and grief.</p><p>He knew it was wrong. But he had no idea how to confront <em>why</em> it was wrong. Or how he could now fix it.</p><p>Chloe hadn’t seemed to notice. “Cole and Chloe.” She laughed, a sound that chimed through the alleyway, turning the sordid, dank, wet surroundings to something sweeter. “I like the sound of that, don’t you?”</p><p>#</p><p>During the day, when he was Connor, he was trapped with responsibilities. It was impossible to dodge Markus. It wasn’t as if Connor had any excuse of being too busy. Markus was Markus, probably one of the busiest androids there was or ever would be.</p><p>And his requests were so <em>reasonable</em>. Always worded in a such a way that resistance seemed like more effort than compliance.</p><p>Connor was a well-known android, his name, his model, his entire <em>identity</em> was associated with the Detroit police force. It made sense that he’d be the one to close the gap between Jericho and the DPD on issues like android trafficking, android criminals, and… Rannix.</p><p>So it was really only a matter of time before Connor ended up standing at the front of the darkened briefing room, while at his side, a representative of Jericho calmly droned over a slideshow of facts and figures associated with the blooming Rannix epidemic.</p><p>“Make no mistake, thirium-hacking stimulants will reach the streets of Detroit and it <em>will</em> start to influence the crimes we’re seeing. It’s going to become a global trend, and it’s more dangerous than anyone is yet ready to admit,” the volunteer narrated calmly to a sea of Connor’s bored co-workers.</p><p>Connor felt like they were all looking at him.</p><p>He didn’t know what to do with his hands. With his feet. With his mouth. Did he smile? Should he ask a question, glance at the other androids? Or the humans? Was it suspicious to stare straight ahead? Thirium hummed through his components, the pressure in his circulator building until he was starting to pick up loops in his code—hasty errors made by over-stressed components.</p><p>“New Jericho is working with the city of Detroit to establish safe rehabilitation centers for addicted androids,” the presenter, Deacon, told the shadowy silhouettes of the central precinct’s officers. “While we understand that your jobs are dangerous, and that we cannot foresee every difficult situation you will face, we would urge you to be aware that androids who use Rannix are still people. They are not beyond help or understanding.”</p><p>They all seemed so ominous in the dark, silently facing Connor. The android felt accused. Judged. Scrutinized. As if they all already knew. As if all they’d needed to connect the dots was Connor standing in front of them with a huge glowing Rannix vial projected on the screen at his back.</p><p>Deacon closed the folder on the podium, inciting a smattering of applause from the audience. The lights flicked on, causing groans from the human company in the room. Connor straightened, his eyes finding Hank in the back of the room. The Lieutenant sprawled into his chair, tipping the legs at an angle, dangerously unbalanced with his hands crossed behind his head.</p><p>“If you have any questions, I’ll be around the precinct for a few days for a few more of these lectures,” Deacon assured the gathering. “I would appreciate it if you took a flyer on your way out. Awareness is key to making a difference on the streets of Detroit.”</p><p>He gestured to a stack of neatly folded brochures beside the complimentary stacks of donuts and tankards of coffee Jericho had supplied. A bribe of sorts, to keep the officers from complaining about a wasted morning. It had worked wonderfully. As soon as the boxes had started coming through the doors, there hadn’t even been a need to corral a single human officer, even Detective Reed, into the briefing room.</p><p>Now unleashed from the presentation, they were loath to leave and go back to their desks and restart their day, but Connor couldn’t leave fast enough. He took one of the pamphlets at the door and strode back to his desk ahead of the donut station and the bottle-necking crowd gathering there.</p><p>Once he was seated behind his monitor, Connor looked down at the brochure. The paper was thin but sturdy, covered with bright, eye-catching colors and a thin, glossy laminate. <em>Warning Signs of Exo-Code Abuse and Where to Seek Help.</em></p><p>It opened delicately, flipping on its thin, neatly folded spine to display a series of short paragraphs of definitions and false assurances. Connor skipped them. He’d taken one to see the long list on the last page.</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Physical indicators of Exo-Code Abuse:</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Avoiding eye-contact</em></li>
<li><em>Loss of calibration/balance</em></li>
<li><em>Shakes and tremors</em></li>
<li><em>Poor hygiene/change in appearance</em></li>
<li><em>Difficulty staying on task/focused</em></li>
<li><em>Extremely tired or extremely hyperactive</em></li>
<li><em>Paranoia, irritability, anxiety, fidgeting</em></li>
<li><em>Red-tinted Thirium (seek immediate examination)</em></li>
</ul><p>
  
</p><p>He frowned and put the paper flat on his desk to dig the quarter out of his pocket. Loss of calibration? He would have noticed--</p><p>The quarter wasn’t there.</p><p>He dug his hand further into his jeans, then checked the other one. Where had he left it? A flash of pulled-memory caught his attention. He’d been with Chloe again last night. She’d taken him to the river, to the rocky shore between Detroit and Canada.</p><p>Yes. He could hear now the delicate metallic chime of the coin hitting the rocks at the peak. Had he not calibrated in almost twelve hours? The paper trembled in his hands and he let it drop onto the desk, flattening his palms to the desk on either side of the pamphlet.</p><p>He’d never been without the coin. When he’d first awoken, a technician had given it to him. His first memory was of flipping it between his hands. It had taught him how to move. How to see. How to sense the weight, the scale, the <em>shape</em> of the world around him.</p><p>And his eyes fell on the last page.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Behavioral signs of Exo-Code abuse include:</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Abandoning long-time friends</em></li>
<li><em>Losing interest in hobbies or activities</em></li>
<li><em>Lack of regard for rules or laws</em></li>
<li><em>Appearing despondent, aggressive, or angry</em></li>
<li><em>Resisting discipline or feedback</em></li>
<li><em>Missing appointments or breaking from a schedule</em></li>
<li><em>Self-isolating or damaging relationships</em></li>
</ul><p> </p><p>He started as Hank sat down on the other side of the desk, a glazed donut crusted with extra pink icing and a spray of multi-colored sprinkles. The Lieutenant frowned as he examined Connor’s face.</p><p>Connor carefully maintained eye contact.</p><p>Was it weird? It felt weird.</p><p> “You feeling okay?” Hank asked.</p><p>Connor frowned right back, “What do you mean, Lieutenant?”</p><p>The Lieutenant wagged the fat, colorful pastry into the air between them. “No comment?” he asked. “You’re not gonna tell me how many calories I’m about to consume?”</p><p>Connor blinked. “Do you want me to?”</p><p>“Not really.”</p><p>But the elevation of Hank’s heartbeat and the narrowing of his eyes said differently. Connor rolled his eyes. “Is there anything I could say to get you to not eat that?”</p><p>The Lieutenant’s expression relaxed into a cheerful smile as he shrugged. “No.”</p><p>He seemed happy enough to turn back to his monitor and the file-work there. Connor carefully folded the paper back along its creases, and then once more before tucking it into his pocket.</p><p>“What do you think?” he asked Hank.</p><p>The Lieutenant glanced back at him, chewing and swallowing pointedly before asking, “About?”</p><p>Connor suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Rannix. Exo-Code.”</p><p>Hank shrugged, biting down on his donut and focusing on his own monitor. “Sounds like overtime,” he muttered around a mouthful of sugar and dough.</p><p>#</p>
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